The Great Green Bush Cricket is Huge! – up to 5.4cm long (One of the largest insects in Northern Europe ) It is a striking and beautiful bright green colour and has an incredibly loud male song - a bit like a shrill computer printer. The male sings on summer afternoons, well into the evening.It also has ‘Ears' on its front legs!
The Devon Biodiversity Action Plan says: ”Nationally, the great green bush-cricket has experienced a marked contraction in range over the past 50 years or so, and where it does still occur is less numerous than it used to be. It is not, however, a particularly rare species in Devon at present - indeed the County is a stronghold of the species in Britain .”
The GGBC is restricted to the South of England and South Wales , only in the South West is it at all frequent. In Devon it is found primarily in coastal situations, especially the south coast, but also is locally abundant inland where suitable habitat prevails, and it is not uncommon in the lanes and hedgerows of the South Hams. The GGBC likes rough tall grass and shrubby areas with thistles and brambles. It also needs patches of soil or short turf in which to lay its eggs. Such areas of rough grassland and hedgerows with uncut field margins are rare on modern farms. In suburban areas, road verges and gardens, scrubby habitat has also disappeared due to too much ‘tidying up'.
Show/hide picture credits-
Bluebells - D. Ellacott
Meadows - D.Ellacott
Great Green Bush Cricket illustration - Simon Carpenter